The British Army’s Royal Engineers have been instrumental in offering comprehensive mine disposal training to Ukraine’s combat engineers.
This initiative, taking place in Poland, aims to enhance Ukraine’s capabilities to counter the extensive threat of mines and other explosives in their ongoing conflict.
“Royal Engineers sappers have delivered crucial explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) training to Ukrainian soldiers to disable mines, munitions and other explosive devices that are being used in Ukraine and are currently one of the biggest threats to the safety of civilians in the country”, said a press release.
Mines remain a formidable challenge for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, especially as they strive to reclaim territories currently under illegal occupation. The training provides Ukrainian soldiers with knowledge on munition recognition, disposal methods, and procedures to counter threats ranging from IEDs to trip wires.
The training also involves lessons on clearing land, trenches, bunkers, and civilian structures. Practical evaluations comprise search operations in complex areas under a designated commander. The soldiers utilise metal detectors and extraction kits, and they’ve been trained on equipment donated by the UK, notably the VALLON detectors.
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps emphasised the UK’s enduring support for Ukraine, stating: “Our support for Ukraine is unwavering and I want to be clear that we will continue to support Ukraine to ensure they win this war and reclaim their sovereignty.”
Additionally, the Royal Engineers have set up a training environment mimicking conditions akin to the actual frontline. The training program was crafted post a request from Ukraine and is continually updated based on insights from Ukrainian sappers, many of whom have frontline experience dating back to 2014.
Moreover, the UK has actively collaborated with a Canadian-led initiative in Poland. Collectively, these programs have trained about 1,000 soldiers and have plans to train even more. The UK has supplied Ukraine with over 1,500 sets of mine clearing and explosive ordnance disposal equipment.
This will cut both ways as we will be milking the Ukrainians for every ounce of info regards Russian kit especially their latest mines such as the PTKM-1R which is a smart mine which is fitted out with sensors linked into a database where it will recognise the vehicles moving around it within 100 metres, if one comes up as enemy, then it launches a top attack munition. Also the Ukrainians have come up with fitting their UAVs with infrared cameras and after the sun has been up for a few hours they fly over an area and they are able to spot mines due to how they retain heat better than the surrounding ground (plenty of videos on social media of them doing this) saying that plenty of videos of Russians clearing mines by simply driving over surface laid mines
Isn’t is crazy the whole world signed off on banning land mines many countries signed up except Russia and China. They are happy to indiscriminately kill people.
The Russians must have planted millions of mines along their defensive lines as it’s taking Ukraine an age under fire to pick their way through. Can’t imagine being on my belly crawling forward picking the ground with a bayonet looking for a mine, all whilst being shot at , having mortar and artillery rounds exploding nearby. Nightmare. Utter hell on earth.
The Ukrainian mine clearance teams are the bravest of the brave.
I think you will find that was for anti personal mines not anti tank! A layer of defence stripped from us by Lady Dianna!
Mr Bell wrote:
“”Isn’t is crazy the whole world signed off on banning land mines many countries signed up except Russia and China.””
The 1997 Ottawa treaty aka the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines convention only targets AP mines and cluster munitions (As Jacko pointed out before me) and there are around 32 countries which have openly refused to sign up that such as
Russia
Iran
China
Pakistan
Both Koreas
India
The US
Egypt
Lebanon
Israel
Vietnam
Saudi Arabia
Which added up account for a large amount of the worlds arms suppliers and who on the whole have no problems selling weapons to others no questions asked. Of the 163 countries which have signed up quite a few pay lip service Gaza has no problem lobbing Iranian made antipersonnel rockets into Israel. Officially Gaza comes under the remit of Palestine which has signed up. Then there are the non-state actors (Aka Terrorist, or freedom fighters when reported by the likes of the BBC) who are openly supported by countries with a political axe to grind against another . So Sudan which signed up in 1997 is currently embroiled in an Internecine bunfight between the government and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, with the former using the latter to do its dirty work in the past not only in areas it wanted to hand over to China for oil (Darfur and the South) But used them out of the country in places such as Yemen, Libya, and then there are cop outs such as the claymore mine , which is allowed to be used albeit in a command wire use only, but as somebody who has used them, affixing a victim detonated trip wire is child’s play.
child & play being the unfortunate phrase in this context…
What a job! The amount of mines is a massive headache. I’ve seen pictures of mines with grenades hidden underneath them and other types of booby traps.
Ukraine needs to be given everything they require to get the Russians out. The U.K. needs to do more. The U.K. gave 0.8% of gdp to the soviets in WW2 but it’s barely 0.2% to Ukraine.
If Ukraine falls the world will change and that will cost a lot more.
The U.K. could be ordering most kit from U.K. companies so it’s investment.
The UK has done pretty well – its countries like France, Italy and Spain that need to lift their game.
Old school wrote:
From Jan 2022 to June 23: (figures in % of GDP)
Poland:0.68
Holland: 0.44
Uk: 0.37
US: 0.33
Germany: 0.27
Italy: 0.07
Spain:0.06
France:0.05
Thanks Farouk as always a detailed explanation.